


Towards A Shared Future

by kiranosaurusrex



Category: Messiah Project - All Media Types
Genre: Bonding, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 20:16:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7283245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiranosaurusrex/pseuds/kiranosaurusrex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for Shikkoku no Shou.</p>
<p>A take on what happens after the movie.<br/>Souma and Shuusuke hurt/comfort and bonding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Towards A Shared Future

After reporting the outcome of the mission to Ichijima and taking off any extra gear (bulletproof vests and the like), the four SAKURA cadets returned to their respective rooms. Souma smiled a little to himself when he immediately heard Eiri and Haku starting to argue next door, once the doors closed behind them. That would probably never change.

As for him and his own room…

Things were different here now. Things had changed between him and Shuusuke in the past few hours. They still had a long way to to, though. The silence that spread between them now was one sign that things wouldn’t just magically change.

Shedding coat and tossing it over the rack at the foot of his bed, Souma then also got rid of his gloves. They didn’t get a lot of rest and downtime at the Church but for the little time they were allowed to just rest and recover, he wanted to be comfortable. He wanted to at least pretend that the Church didn’t own him.

The sound of rustling fabric from next to him drew his attention away from his darker thoughts.

He snorted almost inaudibly in amusement when he spotted the source of the sound. Shuusuke had gotten a new coat - after leaving his old one with Haruki’s dead body - and apparently he hadn’t quite adjusted to it yet. His long hair had gotten caught somewhere.

“Wait, let me help you,” Souma walked over and carefully untangled the dark strands from one of the cherry blossom shaped buttons. He pulled the coat all the way off and then offered it to Shuusuke, who was blinking at him in slight confusion and with a hint of surprise.

“Thank you, Souma.” Hearing his name from the other - his given name - still felt strange but somehow also very good and very right. It sounded different than when other people said it for some reason as well. Shuusuke had a distinct way of saying it. Souma couldn’t describe it. It was just something very uniquely Shuusuke.

He gave the other a small smile in return. “No problem. You’re welcome.”

When Shuusuke took his coat back from Souma, their fingers brushed against each other and Souma shivered a little bit at the contact. He looked up at Shuusuke in a reflex and saw the other looking back at him. Apparently the short contact hadn’t just surprised him alone. The touch of their ungloved fingers, of their bare hands in private was a new experience.

Just a few hours ago, they had sealed a pact with their handshake. They had become each other’s Messiah. They had done so as members of the Church, as SAKURA. 

It would take some more time for them to do the same as people, as themselves.

“Go ahead and take a shower.” Souma broke the silence. “Get all that dust off you again.”

“I-I’ll do that.” Shuusuke nodded and then grabbed a change of clothes after hanging up his coat properly. He disappeared into the small bathroom.

One would think that since the Church was an all male institution - although there were female spies of course but they were trained elsewhere - there would be communal showers and the like but that wasn’t the case. Each room had their own small bathroom. It was all in accordance to the Church’s rules. Communal showers and the like would probably foster feelings of friendship and camaraderie or something like that.

Even the common room spaces were designed to fit at most two people. Or maybe four. Four seemed to be the largest units in which SAKURA were allowed to operate. 

The latest mission, the one that had gone so terribly wrong, had been an exception. Actually there should have been eight of them but one half of the fourth pair of Messiah had not returned alive from their last mission.

Souma hadn’t known them very well, he and Haruki had worked with Haku and Eiri more but he knew that Shuusuke and Sakai had been grouped with the other pair a few times.

He idly wondered how Shuusuke felt about that loss. It probably weighed less than Sakai’s but Souma was sure that it couldn’t have left Shuusuke unaffected. The other just wasn’t showing it. If he’d learned one thing about Shuusuke, it was that the other didn’t show his emotions very freely and kept himself very guarded. A part of it irked Souma but another part of it could understand the sentiment behind it as well. After losing so much, it was only natural for people to try and protect themselves from that pain.

Pain of losing someone close to you. Souma didn’t know whether he wanted to laugh or cry or just sit on his bed in lethargy. Now that he let them, the emotions crashed down onto him.

Being told that Haruki had lied to him all this time.

Being told that the one thing that hadn’t been a lie had been Haruki’s feelings towards him.

Haruki giving him a choice - to kill his old or new Messiah.

Holding Haruki as the other had taken his last breath.

Souma jumped a little when he felt someone sidling up against his back. Someone warm and comforting. It wasn’t an intimate contact - just another back pressed against his own - but it still made him feel safe and secure all the same.

“I know I am in no position to provide comfort but…” Shuusuke let his sentence trail off. Souma knew what the other wanted to say. He let out a soft sigh and closed his eyes.

“I should say the same thing.”

No more words were spoken between them for a long time. They just leaned against, leaned on each other and took comfort in the respective other’s presence.

Thinking about it, Souma found to be quite fascinating. How he was able to understand the other on a level like this all of a sudden when they had only started to get along less than 24 hours ago. It suddenly felt like it had been much longer.

Maybe that’s what both Ichijima and Haku had seen when they had looked at them.

Speaking of Haku. “Hey, remember when I tried to talk to you for in private for the first time? About your past and your reasons for being here? I heard all that from Haku. Do you know how he came to know some stuff about your past? You think he accessed the files?”

“I don’t think he would do that, or he would have known everything. He has photographic memory after all. Your information was incomplete, so he couldn’t have had it from an official source.” Souma felt Shuusuke shaking his head and then the other sighed softly. “He might have heard from Sakai. They were, well, I don’t think you can call it friends but they did know each other. Sakai and Haku joined the Church around the same time, if I remember correctly. At least that’s what Sakai told me. That he’d known Haku for a long time.”

“Ah, yeah. Haku’s been around for a long time. I didn’t know Sakai had been around for that long as well?” Souma blinked. The other had been around when Souma had joined the church but he’d never talked to Sakai much. There had been no reason to.

“He had never been paired up with someone else before. Apparently none of the other cadets had been considered a good enough match for him. At least that’s what he told me.” Shuusuke’s voice was steady and calm, as usual, but Souma could detect a soft tremble that went through the other’s body that gave away some of the emotions that were welling up inside Shuusuke right now as he talked.

“I was Haruki’s first Messiah as well but he hadn’t been around for a lot longer than me. Only a couple of months. He taught me a lot of the martial arts stuff when I started off. And how to shoot.” Souma laughed dryly at the irony of it all.

Shuusuke shifted a little bit. “Let’s remember them fondly tonight and then lock those memories away. Let’s treasure them as good things and not as a burden that keeps us from moving on.”

“You always sound so cool, collected and logical but I bet you’re close to crying right now, aren’t you?” When there was no answer from the other, Souma huffed softly and turned around. He grabbed Shuusuke’s shoulders and wrapped the other into a slightly awkward hug. “Cry if you want to cry. Don’t just keep things locked in. Or it’ll suffocate you.”

He closed his eyes and lowered his head. “I’ll do the same. We’ll feel better afterwards. Sometimes it’s just better to let it all out.”

There was no reply from Shuusuke but after a long moment, Souma felt something hot and wet on his shoulder. Tears were soaking into his shirt. The other wasn’t very audible about it but when he concentrated, Souma could hear the other’s slightly ragged, uneven breathing that signalled to him that Shuusuke was indeed crying.

Somewhere at the back of his mind, Souma noted how the other must not have worn his glasses. Otherwise the tears wouldn’t have reached the fabric of Souma’s shirt so easily. So Shuusuke was unguarded right now. Unguarded and honest.

Souma, to his own surprise, felt tears streaking his own face when a soft sob forced him to make a noise, to take a shuddery breath in through his nose.

Both of them cried until they no longer had any tears left, until they were both empty.

It was a good kind of empty though, an empty that would allow both of them to start anew. Maybe it was less empty than it blank. An almost blank canvas, waiting to get painted on. So far, only vague outlines had been drawn on it, carefully and almost invisibly but some of the lines had gotten a little darker at one point already, when the artist had started to feel a little bit more comfortable and confident about the shape he was drawing.

They would go from here. Together, they would fill this world of black and white with their colours. Distinct colours that only belonged to them and no one else.

“Souma-”

“Shh. Stay here. I’ll be right back.” He cut the other off before Shuusuke could say anything else. “I know you’re tired. Just go ahead and sleep.”

Surely enough, when Souma returned from his quick shower, he found Shuusuke lying on one side of the bed, leaving more than enough space for Souma to slide in. So he did just that and he felt his back pressing against Shuusuke’s once more. It really was a comfortable position. A position that told him how much the other trusted him - and that showed Shuusuke how much Souma trusted him in return. Shiba Shuusuke. His new other half, the new other half of his soul.

Of course Souma wouldn’t forget Haruki. Couldn’t forget him. Just like Shuusuke would and could never forget Sakai. Those two would always hold a special place somewhere in their hearts. Hearts they were not allowed to have. Hearts, that would need to be locked away securely. Souma knew that they would both do just that. That they would lock away the past in order to move on to the future. A future together. A future that would start in the morning when they opened their eyes again.


End file.
